


Life on Jabberwock

by PanBaguette



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bisexual Hinata Hajime, Dangan Ronpa 3 Spoilers, Gay Komaeda Nagito, Jabberwock Island (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Neo World Program (Dangan Ronpa), Remnants of Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Slow Burn, Super Dangan Ronpa 2 Spoilers, Tsundere Hinata Hajime, angst is not my strong suit, everyone is kinda depressed, hajime is being depressed, not really angst, so is nagito, when is hajime not a tsundere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBaguette/pseuds/PanBaguette
Summary: Everyone always assumes life was paradise after the Remnants of Despair moved to Jabberwock Island permanently.It wasn't.We lived a life of fear, guilt, and nightmares. We navigated a mess of emotions, pain, and suffering. It wasn't all bad, though. As we opened up more socially, we all struggled to deal with traumatizing memories of our past lives on Jabberwock island. Could we learn to cope and eventually live a happier, better life?
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So, to address the elephant in the room, this is my first Danganronpa fanfic. While it isn't my first fic ever, it's still pretty nerve-wracking to post my first fic in this fandom on a public forum. I'm having a lot of fun writing this story, and while I struggle with the characterization sometimes, I hope I do a better job than I think I do. I love this fandom so much, and I'm happy to finally be writing this fanfic. Let's hope it goes better than I think it will, considering I wrote the majority of this first chapter after midnight when I was exhausted and sleep deprived lol

Hajime Hinata

Everyone always thinks we got our “happily ever after”. That we escaped the simulation, saved our comatose classmates, freed the foundation from the clutches of despair, and moved to Jabberwock Island to live in peace and harmony.

It’s a funny story, really. I thought that’s what would happen, too. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I remember how happy we were on the boat back to the island. We laughed, joked, and partied together. We were all almost always smiling. Isn’t that how you act when your “dead” friends are revived? In our eyes, there was a future. Hope.

When we got back to the island, we started to realize that this wasn’t quite the paradise we would have envisioned. Fuyuhiko, Kazuichi, Sonia, Akane, and I had all gotten used to the similarities between the real island and the one from the simulation. Our classmates, however, struggled more than we predicted. I guess it was so easy for us five to adjust because we didn’t kill anyone anywhere. Or get murdered, for that matter. Plus, when we woke up from the Neo World Program, we still had the mindset of Remnants of Despair. People dying was just a commonality back then. Having a half sociopathic brain helps, too.

Everyone was always afraid. The five of us who survived did our best to help our friends adjust, but there was little we could do. Most of the counseling work fell on me due to my ultimate talents. Sadly, there wasn’t much counseling I could do. More than half of our friends locked themselves in their cottages for days, weeks, even months. The island would always be quiet during the day. The only people you would ever see walking around on a regular basis were Kazuichi, Sonia, Ibuki, and me.

Ibuki had been one of the first people to start acting semi-normal again. According to her, since she died while she still had the despair disease, she didn’t have any memory of Hiyoko or her being killed by Mikan. However, I couldn’t say the same for Mikan. She no longer had the despair disease after Monokuma cured everyone. She had her memories coded back into her uploaded consciousness permanently, but the Izuru Kamukura AI that woke everyone up was able to undo her Junko brainwashing. All Mikan was left with were the memories of killing two of her beloved classmates, and no idea what would ever drive her to do such a thing.

Mikan wasn’t the only one who struggled with her past actions from the Neo World Program. Every killer was haunted by their committed murders and executions, and every victim lived in fear of their killer. It wasn’t pretty.

Hiyoko never left her room. The memory of going somewhere completely innocent, only to see such a gruesome scene unfolding between Mikan and Ibuki before getting murdered plagued her mind and fed her nightmares. Teruteru avoided all other people. All he ever thought about anymore was the death of Twogami, the attempted murder of Nagito, and his mother. Nekomaru and Gundham, who both made sacrifices for the sake of everyone else, felt true and utter despair when they awoke. Their sacrifices may have held meanings in our hearts, but the memory of what they went through drove them crazy. Peko’s last memory of her execution (before she felt pure pain, as she’s said) was thinking she had murdered her favorite person in the world, Fuyuhiko. Considering she had no way of knowing what happened after her execution, it was an understandable mistake. She still had nightmares constantly about cutting him open, spending the last ounce of her life trying to protect his seemingly dead body.

Everyone had been struggling with some sort of trauma. Well, I couldn’t say everyone. The only person whose mental wellbeing I couldn’t attest to at the time was Nagito. He was MIA for months after we moved back to Jabberwock permanently. It was rare to even catch a glimpse of a white hair in the dining hall or outside his cabin. Somehow, he even managed to not be at his cabin whenever one of us tried to check up on him. He was like a wizard, conveniently disappearing any time he wanted. Nobody knew what he had been up to.

Despite all the horrible occurrences on the island, I couldn’t say it had been all bad. Yes, most everyone had PTSD and was avoiding others, but those who had recovered quickly were occasionally seen enjoying their island life. I was incredibly shocked the first time I saw Sonia going down to Chandler Beach with Ibuki and Akane. Mahiru had even been invited, but she had declined for...understandable reasons. It would likely be awhile before she would be able to return to that beach, if ever.

Eventually, more and more people had started to open up their lives to more than just sleeping and refusing to eat or drink. The days were still dark and dreary, and the nights were usually accompanied by the screaming of people having nightmares, but at least people were being a little more social. Once Nekomaru started leaving his cabin more, we started seeing Akane more as well. The same thing ended up happening with Gundham and Sonia. With the charisma of Sonia, Ibuki, and Nekomaru combined, we ended up seeing more of Mahiru, Teruteru, Impostor, Peko, and Mikan. Mahiru was even able to get Hiyoko out of her cabin, if only occasionally.

While things were indeed looking up, nothing would ever be perfect. We would never be able to go back how it was that first day on the digital island. I still remembered everyone laughing, enjoying their time with their newly-met friends, smiling at the beautiful weather and the warm ocean. I remembered the joy I felt as I decided to let my guard down and join the others in what looked like utter happiness. But, above all else, I remembered the shock and fear I felt when the clouds rolled in and we heard the grating voice that belonged to Monokuma, marking the change in our island that would change us all, so we were never the same again.

We didn’t get our happily ever after. Looking back at the first few months, I didn’t think we ever would. However, the true despair we had all been subjected to made it hard to believe that it could get any worse, and the few moments of joy we had were valued above all else. We may have had lives haunted by trauma our first few months on this island, but we had to keep looking forward to finding the happiness that may come.

After all, we were only all here because we had chosen the future, weren’t we?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have mercy, I wrote most of this between 2 and 5 am, and then the rest between 11 pm and 3 am. It is edited, but I’m exhausted so I might have missed some things. Enjoy!

Hajime Hinata

_ I watched Chiaki die. I heard her last words. I didn’t even care. I wanted to feel so badly, but I couldn’t. Tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t know where they came from. Why was I crying? Why should I care about this insignificant, uninteresting, truly... _ boring _ human? She was of no use to me. At the same time, I wanted her back. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to play video games with her. One last time. Kamukura, Hinata, Kamukura, Hinata. Which one is it? Why did I miss Chiaki more than anything, but at the same time not care about her lifeless, tortured body? _

_ What did Hope’s Peak Academy  _ do _ to me? _

I woke from my nightmare, panting. Unlike the others on the island, I didn’t exist during the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history. Hajime Hinata had been long gone by then, and only Izuru Kamukura remained. Because of this, my nightmares of my time as one of the Ultimate Despair were different than the others’. I never made the choices to cause despair, or to hurt Chiaki and her classmates by helping Junko. That was all the work of the infamous Izuru Kamukura, who was now a part of me. Having all of Izuru’s acts replayed for me in my nightmares was more painful than I would have ever imagined. I couldn’t see myself in his actions at all. Hajime Hinata would never do anything that he did. But now that he was a part of me, I couldn’t stop myself from occasionally agreeing with the choices he made. I sometimes even acted like him. How do you come to terms with the fact that someone you would normally hate is now  _ you _ ? Completely, undeniably you.

Putting my Kamukura thoughts aside, I forced myself to look up at the white canopy above my bed. It was still dark in my room, telling me that my nightmare must have really messed up my schedule. I cursed myself for not even trying to go back to sleep as I reached for my phone. The first thing I noticed, as I usually did after I woke up, were the hundreds of notifications from my group chat with Fuyuhiko, Kazuichi, and Gundham. MOst of the messages were from Kazuichi, of course.

I skimmed through the messages, knowing that if I didn’t read the conversation, Kazuichi would act all sad and offended when I didn’t know what had happened throughout the night. There were a lot of late-night pictures of the mood, the sea, various hamsters (all Gundham’s), and unnerving close-ups of Kazuichi’s face.

Once I got to the bottom of the chat, I realized everyone was awake and chatting. Weird. Fuyuhiko didn’t usually wake up until well after noon, and it was currently 5 in the morning.  _ What’s going on? _ I typed.

After deciphering an excessive amount of messages from Kazuichi, I got the sense that something big was happening. I didn’t know with who, or why, or even what, but I agreed to meet up with the other 3 at the park in an hour. While I got dressed and presentable enough to be around other people, I let my mind wander.

Ever since our friends woke up from their comas, Fuyuhiko and I were tasked with handling any...serious situations. Inter-group violence, breakdowns, people refusing to take care of themselves, etc. It all fell on us. Sonia and Akane would have helped in a normal situation, but when this all started they had their hands full with Gundham and Nekomaru, which was okay with Fuyuhiko and I. Fuyuhiko tended to be busier with Peko than anyone else, but Peko refused to let him spend longer than a couple hours with her at a time. She was doing her best to be selfless for her “young master”.

Kazuichi hadn’t originally been assigned these tasks considering his...less than mature personality hadn’t changed much, but he was persistent. Plus, it’s not like we were going to deny an extra brain and set of hands assisting us. We had bitten off more than we could chew, and we needed all the help we could get. On an island of 15 people struggling with some form of trauma, depression, and/or anxiety, you need people on watch 24/7.

Once people started recovering, a few people got more stable a lot faster than others, Gundham being one of them. We never would have noticed in a normal situation, but Gundham handled intense problems a lot better than anyone would have expected. Whenever someone was falling apart, or on the edge of doing something they’d later regret, Gundham always let us know with no delay. He had even talked a few people down from severe panic on occasion. His speed and determination when bringing us info lead Kazuichi to create the Remnant Recovery™ group chat with us four. Sure, it was super cheesy, and probably not the best way to handle the situation, but I think Kazuichi was more broken up about his classmates’ mental states than he was letting on, so we gave him this one thing. It made him happy to be a part of a group like this though, that’s for sure.

Once I finished getting dressed and combing my hair (that one strand just  _ wouldn’t _ go down), I left my cottage. I swallowed the anxiety bubbling in my gut, forcing myself not to run to the meeting spot.  _ Everything is fine, _ I told myself.  _ If it was serious, we would have met immediately instead of an hour later.  _ I still found myself walking a little faster than I’d like.

Despite my stalling and worrying, I got to the meeting site early. 20 minutes early, to be exact. I tried to sit at the base of the statue  _ calmly _ , but the worry in my stomach wouldn’t let me sit still. 20 minutes later, I was pacing around the park and keeping an eye out for bright pink hair. I was shocked when the first person to arrive wasn’t Kazuichi, but Fuyuhiko. Sure, Kauzichi wasn’t a very timely person, but he was the one who  _ called _ the meeting. Why was he late?

“Have you seen Shark Boy around anywhere? He wasn’t at his cottage and I didn’t pass him on the way over.” Fuyuhiko crossed his arms, clearly annoyed at Kazuichi’s absence.

“No, I’ve been here for a while now. Nothing better to do than show up early, right?”

“Guess Kazuichi doesn’t share that philosophy,” Fuyuhiko sighed, sitting near the statue in the center of the park.

I cleared my throat, attracting his attention. “So...any idea what this is about?”

He shook his head. “All I know is that no one’s hurt.” I couldn’t stop the sigh of relief from escaping my lips. It may have been a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. We have to avoid injury at all costs. Mikan had enough to deal with already, she didn’t need a pile of weak, complaining bodies to keep tabs on.

Fuyuhiko and I waited for a few more minutes before getting worried about Gundham and Kazuichi. What could they be doing that was keeping them from this meeting? I was about to call them on their cells, just to make sure everything was okay, when I heard a booming voice reverberating through the park.

“BEWARE! TANAKA THE FORBIDDEN ONE CURSES YOU WITH THE PRESENCE OF HIM AND HIS HUMAN SIDEKICK! BOW BEFORE THE OVERLORD OF ICE!”

“Geez, man! Quiet down! It’s six in the morning!”

I looked to my left to see Gundham and Kazuichi arriving from the 1st island.

Fuyuhiko growled angrily. “Bastards! It’s 6:30! What the hell were you doing that made you half an hour late?”

“Delivering these notes to everyone’s cottages,” Kazuichi said, handing me a note to read.

**_Meet at the restaurant at 10:00 in the morning. Social gathering + important announcement._ **

“Is this why you called the meeting? To deliver a note that you could have put in our mailboxes or slipped under our doors?” I said, already feeling the effects of waking up at five in the morning.

“No! Uh, sorry. It’s actually about the important announcement. I thought you guys should hear about it first,” Kazuchi said nervously.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Twogami’s gone.”

I stared at him. Gone? How could Twogami be gone? The whole point of moving to Jabberwock was so we could all be there for each other and avoid our past as Ultimate Despair, and one of us just up and  _ left _ ?

“Where the hell could he have gone? We’re on an island surrounded by water on each side for miles.” Fuyuhiko looked furious. I hadn’t seen him this mad since we confronted Junko in the Neo World Program.

“Unfortunately, he was still in contact with the humans called Naegi and Togami. He took a job at the Future Foundation to avoid this cesspool of despair,” Gundham sighed. Even he knew how this absence would affect the already-low morale.

Kazuichi sat on the ground. “I dunno what to do about this, guys. We have less than four hours until people are meeting, and this is just gonna hurt everyone.”

“Our only option is to tell them. It’s not like they weren’t going to find out anyway. Twogami wasn’t exactly as stealthy as Nagito.” Fuyuhiko rolled his eyes and flopped on his back.

I understood how everyone felt. We’d been putting out fires left and right since we got here, and this was yet another problem only we could (or would) deal with. We had taken on the responsibility of making sure everyone was safe, and now we realized that the problems never ended. It was just bad situation after bad situation, with no end in sight. We really  _ had  _ to get the island running more...autonomously. I couldn’t be fixing problems for the rest of my life on this island, unless I wanted to go insane or convert to Kamukura forever.

“What about holding a round table?” Everyone turned and stared at me, confused by my choice of words. I decided to keep speaking. “We could give everyone a chance to pitch their solutions and morale-boosters, and then implement the best ones. It’s not the best idea, but it’ll keep us from having to do this alone.”

Gundham sighed. “Is this truly our only path?

“I hate to say it, but Gundham’s right. Most of our classmates aren’t in the state of mind to be making constructive suggestions, and that’ll just depress everyone further,” Kazuichi reluctantly agreed.

“But what about our classmates who are doing better? They have to be of  _ some _ help, right?” I said, clearly grasping at straws.

“Those bastards wouldn’t help for a million dollars. Can you blame ‘em? We never sleep, we’re always having meetings about some problem, and people are always coming to us to deal with something. I know someone has to do it, but I got issues too, ya know?” Fuyuhiko stood, looking back at us. “I’m taking a break. I’ll see you guys at the restaurant later.”

Watching Fuyuhiko leave, my heart sank a little. It may not have seemed like a big dramatic ending, but I knew this was Fuyuhiko falling to despair, in his own way. Now, not only did I have to figure out how to break the news of Twogami leaving to the group, but I also had to pull Fuyuhiko out of this pit he’s dug for himself.

I snapped myself out of my thoughts when I noticed Kauzichi and Gundham standing as well. “Sorry, man,” Kazuichi said. “Fuyuhiko’s got a point. We all have issues.” He signed and walked away. Gundham looked down at the ground, muttered an apology, and followed suit.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Things were dark, sure, but dark enough to drive everyone away? I thought we were in this together, fighting for the future of our classmates. Now, it seemed everyone had started giving up on their own futures, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was uneventful, and I originally wanted it to include what will now be the beginning of chapter three, but after I hit 2,000 words I felt it would be best to put the rest of the chapter into chapter 3. Chapter 3 will be more eventful, and will really kick off the plot I have planned for the fanfic. This chapter was also fairly different from chapter 1, and that was intentional. It's less realistic than I set it up to be, but I hope the fic is still enjoyable either way.
> 
> Also: Yes, I know this is chapter 2 and Nagito still isn't in it, despite it being a komahina fic. Trust me, he will be in the fic. He'll probably be in it sooner than I'd like because I'm not a patient person and I love Nagito too much to not write him. <3


End file.
